Do you ever wonder why a mouse falls prey to a mouse trap? You know the classic spring trap, with a trigger that holds bait and a spring loaded kill bar that comes slamming down on the mouse once the bait is taken.

The bait must look awful enticing, so much so that the mouse will never step back and see what is connected to the bait … the kill bar!

Governor Ducey has a beautifully constructed spring-loaded trap properly placed, right now. Let’s take a step back and see how this is attached to a kill bar.

The Bait

The 20×2020 proposal is the bait. Joe-Public doesn’t care to dig in and see the composition of the proposal. Joe-Public is busy. Joe-Public sees there’s an offer that seems to match the demands of educators and is left to assume that teachers are being greedy. This of course assumes that the offer is legitimate, but bait doesn’t have to be quality, just enticing enough to lure the prey in, right?

The Trigger

The vehicle that will carry out the 20×2020 proposal is a budget. That is of ultimate significance! A budget is only good for one year. Don’t take my word for it, read about it here from the government’s website. https://www.azleg.gov/jlbc/budgetprocess.pdf

The doctrine that prevents a budget from reaching beyond a year is called ultra vires. That’s latin, so it’s legit, right? It basically states that one legislature cannot tie the hands of another legislature. This year’s budget has no bearing on what is voted on next year!

The Kill Bar

The kill bar is that people will accept this proposal, or be pacified by it, buying the governor enough time to continue on his path towards gutting public education. There will be no emergency session this summer as many of the key legislators live out of state in the summer, and the fall session will be a skeleton crew as the legislators will be campaigning for re-election.

The next legislative session will be a year from. Game Over!

Fight Back

Our job is to expose the trap. This bait is rotten and it stinks. Here’s why:

A budget is only good for a year. This “budget deal,” is a three year plan.

The past few years the government has struggled to fund their budgets. Every year schools receive less than promised in the budget. Last year’s budget, for example, was predicted to have a $104 million shortfall! Let’s learn from history!

Governor Ducey has claimed to work side-by-side with educators and supports public education. This is of course a massive lie. We ended up in this position because the opposite of his statement is true. Corporate tax cuts, designed and approved by Ducey, have landed us in this position. He has faced little opposition along the way!

The continued erosion of public education in Arizona is costing us jobs. Companies like Amazon are looking for a highly educated workforce and reportedly passed on Tucson and Phoenix as a base for their second headquarters because of our public education.

Monday and Tuesday – The Final Rounds

The last piece of work the legislative session will see is the budget. Once the budget is passed many of these legislators will leave the state for their summer homes. A special session will not be called. There will be no session in the fall because of elections. Whatever happens these next two days, is likely going to be the end of getting our legislation to act!

And while you may think that voting them out and replacing them will provide a new promise, it will be just that…a promise. This problem was not created by our current elected officials, it’s a cultural issue unique to Arizona. We have the momentum and we must seize this opportunity! Moral support and honking horns, wearing red to work will no longer be enough. We need everybody willing and able, outside of education, to call in sick on Monday, show up at the capitol.

If we shut down the state on Monday, education wins!

End Game

I speak only for myself on this account, but I would be satisfied, temporarily, if:

We had a budget and a piece of legislation to give it legs that laid forth a sustainable plan to restore public education, or: